Forgelight Pick a water
Tap the wooden sign to see the real lakes and rivers near you. Pick any of them and fish it from your couch.
Cozy pixel fishing · Real places
Pocket Fishing
Support & help
A cozy pixel fishing game where the real weather outside your window, the real season and the real fish of the place you're standing in decide what's biting.
Coming soon to the App Store as Pocket Fishing Adventure
- Real lakes near you
- Real weather
- No account needed
- Data not collected
A look around
Out on the water
Dusk on the lake 
A lunker on the line 
Real waters near you 
The Journal fills up 
Sell your catch at the bait shack 
Rivers run 
When your lake freezes, fish the ice
The loop
How to play
The waiting is the game. Pick a water, cast, watch the bobber and enjoy the lake. The three tabs along the bottom are the Lake, the Journal and the Shop.
Cast
Hold Cast and let go. The longer you hold, the farther the line goes.
Wait for a bite
Watch the bobber. A nibble is just a nibble. When it plunges, tap to set the hook.
Reel it in
Hold anywhere to reel and let go when the tension bar turns red, or the line can snap. Big fish run and jump.
Keep or release
Keep a fish for your cooler and sell it at the bait shack, or release it for a few coins straight away.
Fill the journal
Every new species goes into your Journal with its size, its notes and the weather you caught it in.
Real, not made up
Your place, your sky, your fish
Pocket Fishing finds the actual waters around you, by name, and fishes them under the weather that's really there.
- 37
- regions of the world
- 224
- real species
- 10 mi
- radius searched for real waters
- 0
- made-up fish
Real waters
The lakes, reservoirs, ponds, creeks and rivers come from Apple Maps, searched on your phone. It lists the drawn waters within 10 miles of you, and looks out to 25 if fewer than three are close.
Real weather
The weather on the water is the real weather there, read from Apple Weather. Sunrise, sunset and the moon phase are real too. Offline, the game uses the last weather it read.
Real seasons and hours
Each fish keeps its own months, hours, weather and water temperatures, region by region. A rainy June dusk on a bass lake is busy; a bright January noon is slow.
Sourced, every one
Every species, season and size comes from published sources: fisheries agencies, FishBase and angling records. Settings › Sources lists every link.
Cozy on purpose
A lake worth staring at
Life on the water
A hand-drawn pixel lake: herons crossing, fish jumping, rain rings, fireflies on summer nights and a lantern on the dock after dark.
Music that listens
Music and ambience follow the hour and the weather, and step aside for your podcast. Sound and Music can be turned off separately.
No pressure
Nothing dies and nothing is lost. No energy, no timers that punish, no nags.
Every kind of water
Lakes, rivers & ice
Lakes
Fish from the dock on lakes, reservoirs and ponds. The first tab says Lake.
Rivers
Rivers and creeks run, and they have their own fish. Pick one and the first tab becomes River.
Ice
When your lakes really freeze, you sit on a stool by a hole in the ice with a thermos. Tap Drop line; a jig works for every fish through the ice.
A journal to fill
The Journal
Honest hints
Every fish you haven't caught shows as a chalk outline with a hint: when it bites and what it likes.
Your records
Record sizes, real notes about each species and the weather you caught it in.
Plaques
Finish a region and a plaque goes up on your dock.
The Shop
The bait shack
Every region has its own shopkeeper. Sell your cooler there and spend the coins on rods and bait.
Rods
- Cane pole: near and out a ways. Where everyone starts.
- Spinning rod: casts far out, where walleye, trout and catfish lie.
- Graphite rod: far out, and gentler on the line in a fight.
Bait matters
Match the bait to the fish you're after: minnows for bass, a fly for trout, corn for carp. Worms are free and good for sunfish, catfish, trout, perch and cichlids.
Good to know
The fine print, in plain words
Location, settings and privacy at a glance.
Your location
Approximate location, only while you play. It is never sent to us; only Apple Maps and Apple Weather use it. Location is required to play, since the waters are the ones near you.
Bite alerts
Off until you turn them on. When they're on, you get a note only when the weather is part of why the fish are up, at most once every few days.
Motion
Settings › Motion › Hold still stops the waves, weather, birds and leaping fish, and screens fade instead of sliding. It follows your iPhone's Reduce Motion setting by default.
Your data
Your journal, catches and settings are saved on your phone, with a backup copy in your own iCloud. No account, and nothing comes to us. See the privacy policy.
Offline
No connection? The game keeps playing with the last weather it read.
Free
The whole game is free to play.
FAQ
Common questions
Tap a question to open it.
Why does it want my location?
To find the real lakes and rivers near you, pick the fish that really live there and read the real weather. Approximate location is enough, and it is never sent to us; only Apple Maps and Apple Weather use it. There is no way to pick a place by hand: the waters are the ones near you. If you turned location off, allow it in Settings › Pocket Fishing › Location and the lake is ready when you come back.
My lake isn't in the list.
The list comes from Apple Maps, searched on your phone. If a water has no name on Apple Maps it can't show up yet. The game lists the drawn waters within 10 miles of you, and looks out to 25 if fewer than three are close. If nothing at all is close, it gives you a home water named after your town. Travel, and the list follows you.
Do I have to go to the water?
No. Pick any water in the list and fish it from your couch. The weather is the weather at that water.
Why isn't anything biting?
Real fish keep real hours. A bright cold noon is slow; dawn, dusk and a rainy day are better. The line under the sign tells you how the day looks, and the Journal's hints say when each fish likes to bite.
Is the water temperature real?
Nobody can read a lake's temperature from the sky, so the game estimates it from the last week's air temperature and says so in Settings.
Where do the fish facts come from?
Every species, season and size comes from published sources: state and national fisheries agencies, FishBase and angling records. Settings › Sources lists every link.
The game moves too much for me.
Settings › Motion › Hold still stops the waves, weather, birds and leaping fish, and screens fade instead of sliding. It follows your iPhone's Reduce Motion setting by default.
Is my progress backed up?
Yes. A copy of your save is kept in your own iCloud, so it comes back if you delete the game or move to a new phone. We never see it. If iCloud is off for the game, the save stays on the phone only.
Still stuck?
Need a hand?
Write to us any time: [email protected]. Tell us your iPhone model and roughly where you fish (a town or region is plenty), and we'll take it from there.